Thad Matta (OSU's All Time Winningest Coach & 3x B1G COY, Butler HC)

[Oh8ch]

If you read his quotes carefull it is pretty clear to me that Matt is going to take the IU job. for example:

I've never had any interest in the Indiana job, nor do I have any today.

Ne says NOTHING about tomorrow, or days after that.

I honestly hadn't thought about it until (Wednesday).

A clear admission that he is thinking about it now.

I think I've got one of the greatest jobs in the country

Key phrase "ONE OF". He wouldn't have said it that way if hd didn't think IU was THE greatest job.

And finally -

`Quite honestly, I love my family and I know if I left, I'd be going solo,''

OK, we have all heard about men who have multiple families. Matta travels a lot - especially to Indiana when recruiting Oden and Conley. How do we konw that he doesn't have a second family there and that IT is the famliy he loves? That by going 'solo' he simply means he will be joining the THAT family?


Oh when will this ever end!!

 

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

CPD

3/24/06

NCAA INSIDER

<H1 class=red>Four things I think about... the Minneapolis Regional

</H1>

Friday, March 24, 2006

Doug Lesmerises

Plain Dealer Reporter

1. It's not a great week to be Minnesota coach Dan Monson. He was re ported to be on his way out by a Minnesota paper after the Gophers lost in the NIT, and Gophers' fans seemed ready to see him go. Thing is, he's not gone -- he's still here, watching the best players in the country take over his town. At least there's college hockey for the locals to talk about.

2. This is Georgetown's first NCAA Tournament appearance in five years, but with second-year coach John Thompson III firmly in place, the Hoyas will regain a permanent place as an elite program.

3. Today, the size and speed of Florida frontcourt players 6-11 Joakim Noah, 6-8 Corey Brewer and 6-9 Al Horford will run the Hoyas off the court, leaving Ohio State fans wondering how many points the Buckeyes would have lost by against the Gators.

4. For Thad Matta health reasons, maybe it's a good thing Ohio State isn't here. The Buckeyes coach woke up with a sore foot last Saturday, was limping around after Sunday's loss and is now wearing a walking boot after the foot swelled up while he was flying around recruiting this week. The Buckeyes have the scholarship space to add another player for next year, but Matta isn't pursuing that as a first priority this late in the game, though he's keeping his options open. And the foot should be fine.

 

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

Great picture of Matta, Oden and Conley from this past weekend....

Ohio State coach Thad Matta, left, talks with Lawrence North's Greg Oden, middle and Mike Conley following Lawrence North 80-56 win over Muncie Central in the Class 4A championship game at the IHSAA basketball state finals

 

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

Dispatch

3/31/06

A paragraph in Ohio State men’s basketball coach Thad Matta’s contract permits him to use a private jet for some recruiting. It came in handy Saturday. It enabled him to watch all four high-school seniors bound for Ohio State next season play for state championships.
He was in Value City Arena to see David Lighty of Cleveland Villa Angela-St. Joseph play at 2 p.m. and Daequan Cook of Dayton Dunbar at 5:15. He was in Indianapolis by 8 to see Mike Conley Jr. and Greg Oden of Lawrence North win their third consecutive Indiana state title.

 

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

Dispatch

4/30/06

COLLEGE BASKETBALL DISPATCH MEN’S COACH OF THE YEAR

Matta’s drive apparent in every aspect of his job

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Mark Znidar
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH




Thad Matta was driving down a highway somewhere in America last week on a recruiting trip.

Truth be told, he couldn’t wait until today, when the most recent open visitation period with high-school basketball players expired and he could spend time with his family.

Yet there was no whining or hint of weariness as Matta spoke over the speakerphone. He actually was enjoying this pursuit of future Buckeyes.

"I don’t do bad days," he said. "I always want to be in a great mood. That’s because I’m fortunate. I have one of the greatest jobs in America. There’s absolutely nothing to get down about. Whether it’s practice, a game or recruiting, you have to compete hard. You have to keep pushing because the NCAA limits the days you can practice, play and recruit. Every day is important. You have to do better than yesterday or you’ll be behind."

It was Matta’s full-bore style and upbeat spirit that led Ohio State to the Big Ten regular-season championship, No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament and a 26-6 record. Various preseason polls had the Buckeyes finishing nowhere near the top of the conference.

Coaches in the state overwhelmingly voted Matta as The Dispatch 2005-06 Men’s Ohio College Basketball Coach of the Year.

Matta has captured the fancy of OSU fans for his genuine passion on the sideline. He’ll sweat out his suit by halftime working officials and trying to get every drop of energy from his players.

Guard Jamar Butler said Matta is the same during practices.

"Coach is very active during practice," he said. "He’ll even do some of the drills with us. He’ll get out there and take a charge just to demonstrate to us."

What does Butler think when his 38-year-old coach bodies up with players?

"That kind of scares me a little bit because coach is getting up there in age," Butler said, chuckling. "But everything with him is full go. He has taken some really hard hits, too. He does that to get practices going."

Matta said there’s a method to this madness.

"You’re constantly striving to get the players to play their best basketball," he said. "At age 38, I’m showing them that I can still do it. So you can do it at age 18. I will say that I’m getting smarter about this. I brace myself more. My recovery time is getting longer."

Although Matta will never make the cover of a muscle magazine, he is in outstanding shape. He’ll run 6 miles on Saturday and Sunday and works out on an elliptical machine during the week.

"If you ask the kids to do something physical, you had better be able to do it, too," Matta said.

The players know that if Matta isn’t satisfied with a practice, they’ll return at night to get things right. The players will run sprints at the crack of dawn if they break a team rule.

"Coach always tells us to never get tired of winning and playing hard every second," guard Ronald Lewis said. "His standards are so high. He never bags it. He wants the best from himself, and that makes you want the best from yourself as a player. You learn that from him from day one. Coach comes to games and practices with the idea of going hard. You want to be around someone like that. He’s always smiling, always heads up."

[email protected]

Sunday, April 30, 2006

 

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

LINK

5/2/06

Matta Tabbed Ohio Men's Basketball Coach of the Year

Honor second of career, first at Ohio State


April 30, 2006
Thad Matta was voted the Ohio Men's College Basketball Coach of the Year Sunday, an honor awarded annually by the Columbus Dispatch. The honor, voted on by Ohio coaches, is the second of Matta's head coaching career.

He claimed the same award while the head coach at Xavier in 2004.

Matta is the fifth Ohio State coach to win the Dispatch award for men's basketball. Eldon Miller (1983), Gary Williams (1987), Randy Ayers (1991) and Jim O'Brien (1999) also were honored. Ohio State's Jim Foster claimed his second-consecutive honor for women's basketball coaches this year as well.

The Buckeye men's team finished the 2005-06 campaign with 26-6 overall and 12-4 Big Ten Conference regular-season records. Ohio State won its 11th outright and 16th overall Big Ten regular-season championship, advanced to the title game of the annual league tournament and made it to the second round of the 2006 NCAA Tournament, the 19th appearance in school history.

Matta picked up 2006 Big Ten Coach of the Year honors as well as the District V United States Basketball Writers Association Coach of the Year award.

In two seasons as the head coach at Ohio State, Matta has compiled a record or 46-18 and is 20-12 in Big Ten regular-season competition. Overall, in six seasons as a collegiate head coach, Matta is 148-49 for a .751 winning percentage. His teams have never failed to win fewer than 20 games in a season during his career. Matta and Mark Few of Gonzaga are the only NCAA Division I head men's basketball coaches to win 20 or more games per year in the first six seasons of a career.
The Buckeyes have been particularly impressive in Columbus under Matta's direction. Ohio State finished 16-1 at Value City Arena in 2005-06, which set a record for home wins in a season. In two years with Matta on the sidelines, the Buckeyes are 31-3 when playing in Columbus, which includes an 18-0 record vs. non-conference opponents.

Ohio State already is rated among the Top 5 teams nationally by several prognosticators for the 2006-07 season. Fall practice begins Saturday, Oct. 14.

 

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

Canton

5/7/06

Matta to speak Monday
Sunday, May 7, 2006


CANTON TWP. - Ohio State men’s basketball Coach Thad Matta will speak Monday at the Pro Football Hall of Fame Luncheon Club.

Matta, the final speaker of the season, is making his first visit to the luncheon club.

Ohio State finished 26-6 this season, winning the Big Ten Conference regular season title. The Buckeyes reached the Big Ten Tournament final and were eliminated in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

In two years at Ohio State, Matta’s teams are 46-18 overall.

In six seasons as a college head coach, including stops at Xavier and Butler, Matta is 148-49. His teams never have won fewer than 20 games in a season. He joins Gonzaga’s Mark Few as the only coaches to win 20 or more games in each of their first six collegiate seasons.

The luncheons are held at Four Winds restaurant at 4210 12th St. NW. Lunch is served at 11 a.m., with the program from 12:10 to 1 p.m. Meals are $10 for members and $14 for guests.
The club’s annual dinner and golf outing is May 15 at Tam O’Shanter. Reservations will be taken Monday at Four Winds.

 

[osugrad21]

ABJ

5/9

No shortage of intensity within Matta

Buckeyes men's basketball coach excited about fall recruiting class

By Marla Ridenour

Beacon Journal sportswriter

CANTON TWP. - Thad Matta doesn't need this September's arrival of the nation's top recruiting class to stoke his inner fire. When it comes to the 38-year-old Ohio State men's basketball coach, his pilot light always seems to be on.
Matta oozed his usual intensity Monday at the Hall of Fame Luncheon Club's final meeting of the season at the Four Winds Restaurant. The crowd of nearly 450 rivaled the annual draw of OSU football coach Jim Tressel.
What they heard about recruits Greg Oden, Michael Conley, Daequan Cook, David Lighty and Othello Hunter, aka the ``Thad Five,'' might not have made them ready to bypass football season, but there was a buzz as the gathering broke.
Most of the talk centers on Oden, the center from Lawrence North High School in Indianapolis.
Oden is one of only four players to be named Parade High School Basketball Player of the Year more than once, joining LeBron James (2002-03), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1964-65, then Lew Alcindor) and Jerry Lucas (1957-58).
``Greg Oden is one of the most unique individuals I've ever recruited,'' Matta said. ``He's 7-foot-1, he's got a 7-foot-5 wingspan and has a 36-inch vertical jump.
``But all Greg Oden wants to do is go to college. One of biggest fears I have is when he gets there, people won't allow him to be who he is. I called him Saturday morning and asked what he was up to and he said, `I'm on my way to Kings Island.' He's just 18 years old and has a great future.''
Matta said Oden is so humble he nearly turned down a chance to train with the U.S. Olympic team in Las Vegas in July.
``He said, `Coach, I'm not good enough,' '' Matta said.
Neither is Oden swayed by the hype that he would have been the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft the past two years had the league not changed its eligibility rule that requires a player's high school class to be a year removed from graduation.
``He told me all along he was going to college,'' Matta said. ``They asked him, `Don't you think you're that good?' He said, `Last time I checked, you've got to be able to dribble and be able to shoot to be a great basketball player and I don't do either two particularly well.' ''
Matta said if it were up to Oden right now, he thinks the player would spend four years at Ohio State. That isn't likely, but Matta remembered when Oden came for his official visit ``all he was concerned about was what time he got to meet with the dean of the business school.''
Oden will be joined in Columbus by teammate Michael Conley, a point guard. The pair led Lawrence North to a 103-7 record and three state titles.
``I think Michael Conley is the best point guard in the country; I love him for the way we play,'' Matta said. ``Every morning at 6 a.m. Greg and Michael are in the gym working on their game. Those guys are bringing that work ethic and the excitement back to Ohio State.''
They're not alone.
Matta succeeded in his goal of landing two of the state's top players: shooting guards Cook of Dayton Dunbar and Lighty of Cleveland Villa Angela-St. Joseph. Also coming is power forward Hunter of Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. That means Matta has all five positions covered, not to mention five players returning from the 2005-06 team that went 26-6, won the Big Ten regular-season title and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
``We should have the depth to play a lot of guys, play faster and take more risks defensively,'' Matta said.
Matta's goal is to make Ohio State one of the top five programs in the country, but next year's schedule includes plenty of hurdles. The Buckeyes will visit North Carolina in the Big Ten-ACC Challenge and will face Cincinnati in the John Wooden Tradition at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. A trip to NCAA champion Florida is also in the works, but the paperwork has not been signed. Also, Tennessee and Iowa State will visit Columbus.
Trying to make his mark at a football school hasn't been a problem, Matta said. He said Tressel text-messaged him the morning of every game in February and March. Matta would read Tressel's words during shoot-around and the players would remind him if he would forget.
``It was usually a couple sentences, always very senior-based or about Ohio State,'' Matta said.
So when Matta is asked what it's like to play second-fiddle to Tressel, he said he tells people, ``It's awesome. I've got 12 of the best seats for football you can ever imagine

 

[osugrad21]

Canton Rep

5/9

[FONT=Verdana,Times New Roman,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]OSU’s early success just a start in Matta’s mind[/FONT]
Tuesday, May 9, 2006 [FONT=Verdana,Times New Roman,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]By Joe Frollo Jr. Repository assistant sports editor[/FONT]

CANTON TWP. - Big Ten championship. Back-to-back 20-win seasons. No. 2 tournament seed. One of the nation’s top recruiting classes.
For some college basketball coaches, it’s all they could hope for during a successful career.
For Thad Matta, it’s a nice start.
“What we’ve done at Ohio State ... that’s all been done before,” Matta said. “The question is: Where do we go from here?”
Matta spoke Monday at the final spring meeting for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Luncheon Club. There wasn’t an open seat in Four Winds restaurant, an honor annually granted Buckeyes football Coach Jim Tressel.
“Jim and I share a lot,” Matta said. “Including a goal of winning a national title in the same year,”
Matta and Tressel have formed a close bond in their short time together. They attend each other’s games, and Tressel sends inspirational text messages on game-day mornings that Matta reads to his team.
Matta is asked all the time what it’s like being a basketball coach at a football school —where even with great success, his program still could play second fiddle.
“Honestly, it’s awesome,” Matta said. “I’ve got 12 of the best seats every Saturday.”
It also doesn’t hurt that Matta can take recruits into Ohio Stadium on game days.
“We stand the recruit in front of 105,000 screaming fans and tell him, ‘All these people love the Buckeyes,’ ” Matta said.
The message works as Matta has assembled one of the most touted recruiting classes in America, including two-time National Player of the Year Greg Oden, a 7-footer from the Indianapolis area.
That’s why expectations for Matta and his team are sky-high despite losing four starters to graduation. The Buckeyes finished sixth in the final regular-season Associated Press poll and could begin 2006-07 even higher.
“We’ll be young, and we’ll go through our ups and downs early on,” said Matta, whose non-conference schedule includes North Carolina, Iowa State, Cincinnati and possibly Florida. “But we can’t look too far ahead. We’ve got to build off the success we’ve had here.”
Challenges aren’t new to Matta, who is 148-49 in six seasons at Ohio State, Xavier and Butler. He took over a struggling Buckeye program that was headed toward probation.
Told 10 wins was a stretch his first season in Columbus, Matta finished 20-12. The followup was 26-6, including the Big Ten regular-season title and a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
“Hopefully, we’re on our way,” he said. “I look at the state of Ohio, and I hope we eventually get to where every kid wants to be a Buckeye.”
As for the coach who grew up in Illinois and married a girl from Indiana?
“I think I’ve found a home in Columbus, Ohio,” Matta said.
Buckeye fans sure hope so.
Reach Repository Assistant Sports Editor Joe Frollo Jr. at (330) 580-8564 or e-mail: [email protected]

 

[osugrad21]

Link

5/9

Matta wants to match grid success
[FONT=verdana,Times New Roman,Times,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]By JOE SHAHEEN[/FONT] [FONT=verdana,Times New Roman,Times,arial,helvetica,sans-serif][email protected][/FONT]

Thad Matta has some high standards to live up to as head basketball coach at Ohio State.
Just two seasons into his run as the Buckeye bench boss, Matta – who addressed the Hall of Fame Luncheon Club at the Four Winds Restaurant on Monday – wants the OSU basketball team to reach the same heights as the football Buckeyes have achieved under Jim Tressel.
“I try to model our program after his,” Matta said of Tressel. “His teams always get better. We have a shared goal of winning the national championship the same year.”
During the 2005-2006 academic year, Ohio State – for the first time in school history – won the conference championship in football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball. For Matta, it was simply a step in the right direction, not his ultimate goal.
“Look at the (Buckeye football players) who get drafted,” Matta said. “Look at his graduation rate and how he has changed that. It is truly a model for our basketball program.”
One way Matta has modeled his program after Tressel’s is in recruiting.
“Where is (Tressel’s) strongest recruiting base? It is in Ohio,” Matta pointed out. “When I got the job 20 months ago, the number one thing we felt we had to do in recruiting was recapture the state of Ohio.”
Matta used the football program to his advantage, hosting recruits at football games on Saturday afternoons at Ohio Stadium with 105,000 fans packing the house.
“One thing we always tell recruits as the place is going crazy is that all these people love the Buckeyes,” Matta said.
That love is clearly spreading to the basketball program, which is 46-18 in the two seasons Matta has been at the helm.
“As we got here three years ago in July and there was no mistaking about it and as I told our recruits, ‘We are at rock bottom right now,’” Matta said. “There was not a program that was in worse shape than the program we took over.
“Our biggest challenge is we had to change the attitude, the mindset and the culture of our program.”
The turnaround under Matta was evident from the early stages of the 2004-2005 season. But Ohio State’s one-point victory over No. 1-ranked and undefeated Illinois in the final game of the season will always be remembered as the turning point for the program.
“Our guys kept fighting,” Matta recalled. “Our fans became more and more engrossed in a game. It was an environment that I never ever in my wildest dreams imagined at the Schottenstein Center.
“It gave us a level of confidence that we can beat anyone in the country. It gave us a great passion as we went into the off season of the work ethic we needed to build this team.”
Ohio State finished No. 6 in the nation last winter. The Buckeyes, boasting one of the top recruiting classes in the country, are ranked even higher in preseason polls for 2006-2007 despite the fact they lost four starters.
Two Ohio State returnees are guards Ja’kel Foster and Jamar Butler.
“I’ve never coached a guy as passionate about winning as Ja’kel Foster,” Matta said. “Jamar Butler was probably the most improved player in the Big Ten this year, maybe the country. He went from a 23 percent three-point shooter as a freshman to a 42 percent three-point shooter. That is an astronomical gain.”
Then there is that monster recruiting class.
“We wanted to get the best two (players) out of Ohio and we did that with Daquan Cook (Dayton Dunbar) and David Lighty out of Cleveland,” Matta said. “We had our sites set on Greg Oden and Michael Conley. We needed a point guard and a big guy. We needed a power forward which we found down in a junior college in Florida.
“Oden is one of the most unique individuals I’ve ever recruited. Seven-foot-one with a 7-foot-5 wingspan and 36-inch vertical jump. Two-time national player of the year. The only one to do that was LeBron James. And all he wants to do is go to college. My biggest fear is once he gets here people won’t allow him to be who he is.
“Michael Conley is the best point guard in the country. I love him for the way we play.”
Of course, with all of that talent, there will be great expectations on the basketball Buckeyes. They’ve even become the talk of the town in Columbus, at least during the football off-season.
“I got an e-mail from Coach Tressel during the season thanking me,” Matta revealed. “He said no one had talked pigskin in Columbus for two months.”

 

[MolGenBuckeye]

That's great news that Je'kel is coming back.

 

[BB73]

“Jim and I share a lot,” Matta said. “Including a goal of winning a national title in the same year”

Now there's a worthwhile goal.

:osu:

 

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

Toledo

5/11/06

Quote:
Tressel, Matta, Foster head ‘Meet the Buckeyes’



Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel will be one of the VIPs on hand tonight for “Meet the Buckeyes” night at the Masonic Great Hall at the Stranahan Theater.

Tressel will be joined at the event by OSU men’s basketball coach Thad Matta and women’s coach Jim Foster. All three led their teams to Big Ten Conference championships this academic year.

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith and former Buckeye Ryan Miller are also scheduled to attend, with Miller serving as master of ceremonies.

The Meet the Buckeyes program, now in its 19th year, honors past athletes from Ohio State, and raises money for the Buckeyes’ athletic scholarship fund. Archie Griffin, Mike Tomczak, Chris Spielman and Clark Kellogg are some of the former OSU athletes honored in the past. Tonight’s event is sold out.

Former basketball standout Bill Hosket, an all-American at Ohio State who went on to win an Olympic gold medal and earn all-pro status in the NBA, will be honored, along with Mike Vrabel, a former Buckeyes all-American defensive end now with the New England Patriots who earned all-pro honors in the NFL and has played in three Super Bowls.
— Matt Markey

 

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

Dispatch

5/14/06

SCHOLAR-ATHLETE BANQUET

OSU basketball coach keynote speaker Monday

Sunday, May 14, 2006

</IMG>


Ohio State men’s basketball coach Thad Matta will serve as keynote speaker for The Columbus Dispatch Scholar-Athlete Banquet, presented by Segna Volvo, at 6:30 p.m. Monday in the Aladdin Shrine Center.

Matta, 38, led the Buckeyes to a 26-6 record and an outright Big Ten regularseason championship in 2005-06, his second season at Ohio State. His 46 wins at OSU are more than any other coach has compiled in his first two seasons at the school.

Before coming to Ohio State, Matta was coach at his alma mater, Butler (Ind.), for the 2000-01 season and for three seasons at Xavier in Cincinnati. His career record is 148-49 (.751 winning percentage).

Matta began his coaching career at Indiana State as a graduate assistant in 1990-91. He served as an academic coordinator and administrative assistant at Butler (1991-94) before taking his first fulltime assistant coaching position at Miami University in 1994-95.

The following year, Matta became an assistant at Western Carolina. He returned to Miami in 1996-97 and helped the RedHawks to a 21-9 record, the Mid-American Conference regular-season and tournament championships and a berth in the NCAA Tournament. Matta rejoined Butler’s staff in 1997 as an assistant, and was Butler’s primary recruiter for three seasons before being named coach.

Matta, a native of Hoopeston, Ill., was a two-year starter at Butler after transferring from Southern Illinois as a sophomore.

Also at the banquet, $26,000 in scholarships will be awarded to seven students on behalf of Wolfe Associates. First-prize scholarships of $6,000, second-place scholarships of $4,000 and third-place awards of $3,000 will be presented to one boy and one girl in each category.

Two students, one boy and one girl, will receive $2,500 as winners of the Segna Volvo Drive to Leadership Scholarships.

A $3,000 scholarship will be awarded to a student in memory of Air Force Capt. Warren B. Sneed, a 1991 Dispatch scholar-athlete who died in 2000 when his F-16 collided with another military jet during military exercises over the Sea of Japan.

Also, the annual Lou Berliner Award will be presented to a member of the high-school sports community who has had a positive effect on his fellow student-athletes. The award is named for the late Dispatch sports reporter.

[email protected]

 

[osugrad21]

HOW YA LIKE DEM APPLES?!?!

CBS

6/4

No hedging here: Buckeyes' Matta top recruiter -- in history

June 4, 2006
By Gregg Doyel
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
Tell Gregg your opinion!

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]

[/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica] There have been better recruiting classes -- maybe. Duke has had several monster classes over the years. North Carolina has had two since 2002. There was Michigan's Fab Five in 1991. UCLA in 1965 with Lew Alcindor and Lucius Allen. [/FONT]

Thad Matta has lured three McDonald's All-Americans for '06-07, including 7-foot-1 Greg Oden. (Getty Images) [FONT=Arial, Helvetica] So maybe there have been better recruiting classes than the one to be unveiled this season at Ohio State. Maybe. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] But there's never been a college basketball recruiter to match Ohio State's Thad Matta. If this were boxing, Matta would be considered -- pound for pound -- the best recruiter of all time. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] By knockout. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Maybe that's an irrational thing to say, so let's look at this rationally. Just to make sure. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] First of all, look at the group Matta signed for the 2006-07 season. It includes three McDonald's All-Americans, most notably 7-foot-1 center Greg Oden. Projections are dangerous, but that's all we have to go on right now ... and many scouts project Oden as the best U.S. center since Alcindor, who changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Along with Oden and two other McDonald's All-Americans -- point guard Michael Conley, wing Daequan Cook -- Matta signed another top-30 recruit in small forward David Lighty and finished off the class with solid junior college forward Othello Hunter. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Plenty of schools have signed three McDonald's All-Americans in the same year, of course. Along with Ohio State, North Carolina also did it this year. Kansas did it last year. Kentucky in 2004. North Carolina in 2002. It happens. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Shoot, Duke (in 1999 and 2002) and Michigan (1991) signed four McDonald's All-Americans from the same class. The McDonald's game didn't exist in 1965, but if it had, the Bruins would have had three or four All-Americans from their recruiting class of Alcindor, Allen, Lynn Shackleford and Kenny Heitz. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] But that brings up the second point. Look at those schools, and those circumstances. And then look at Ohio State. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky, UCLA ... those are probably the top five programs of all time. Recruits go there for the same reason shoppers go to the mall. Because the mall works. And because everyone else will be there anyway. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Michigan? Michigan isn't in the class of those five schools, but it had something to tip the scales in its recruiting favor: Michigan cheated. The Wolverines' Fab Five from 1991, hailed as the best class in college hoops history, brought the program down under a fusillade of recruiting violations. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] In other words, there were good reasons -- or in Michigan's case, bad reasons -- for Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky, UCLA and Michigan to put together some of the greatest recruiting classes ever. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Ohio State? There's no reason for Matta to put together this recruiting class. Recruiting is salesmanship, and Matta was selling an aging duplex on the wrong side of town. [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Two years ago, Ohio State was bad in almost every possible way. When Matta arrived in July 2004, the Buckeyes were coming off 17-15 and 14-16 seasons. Both years, Ohio State finished ninth in the Big Ten. That's not good, but what was happening off the court was worse. Matta had replaced Jim O'Brien after major NCAA violations were alleged, and later found. [/FONT]
Advertisement
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] As Matta was recruiting Oden, Conley, Cook, Lighty and Hunter, Ohio State was banning itself from the 2005 NCAA Tournament while being kept in the dark about future postseason eligibility. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Getting the picture here? UCLA landed players like Lew Alcindor because it was UCLA, and because that's what UCLA does. Same goes for North Carolina with that Raymond Felton-Sean May-Rashad McCants class of 2002, and then the Brandan Wright-Wayne Ellington-Tywon Lawson class of 2006. Duke, Kentucky and Kansas are going to get their share of elite recruits for the same reason. They're Duke, Kentucky and Kansas. To muscle into that class, Michigan had to cheat. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] And now there's Ohio State. Understand something: There are no whispers of impropriety involving Ohio State's recruiting bonanza. Coaches can be gossips and back-stabbers, but there's been none of that here. Thad Matta and his staff outworked and outcharmed everyone else for Oden and Co., and everyone else knows it. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Matta's doing it again, too. He already has commitments from three Top 100 players from the class of 2007, including 7-1 Euro-style forward Kosta Koufos. Matta also has commitments from two Top 20 players in the class of 2008, including 7-0 center B.J. Mullens. In Oden, Koufos and Mullens, Matta has locked up the country's top-rated 7-footer for three consecutive years. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] That's incredible. Because this is happening at Ohio State -- and not UCLA, Duke, North Carolina, etc. -- it's beyond incredible. It's inconceivable. Which means the argument is incontrovertible:[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Pound for pound, program for program, Matta's the best recruiter. Ever. [/FONT]